Young Mums' Mansion, or The House of Mardy Tearaways

I watched (and was hugely moved by) the last series of this, much more than I was expecting to be. It came along as I was still mourning Dr Tanya's flight from The House of Tiny Tearaways, the most compulsive psychology programme on telly in the last decade, cunningly dressed up as a toddler training show. The basic premise of YMM is you get ten single mums and their kids, stick them in a big house and put each mum in charge in turn and watch them break down over the period of a month. The twist in the new series: half of the single mums are in fact single dads.

Simone is the first one in charge, she of tiny daughter, teenage son and a chip on her shoulder about men which will only increase during the episode. Her plan is to segregate the house, send the women out on lovely day trips while the single dads deal with child care and housework. Her plan is initially derided by the men, who feel justifiably victimised by her assumptions about them as lazy, feckless no-hopers. As the alpha female she was always going to come into conflict with the alpha male, ludicrous pocket ex-cage fighter Lee who can't stop himself slagging off women at every turn and bragging about the affairs which ended his marriage. Simone, with cruel accuracy, puts his complaints down to short man syndrome, which was the only moment in the episode when I felt for her. Well that, and the bit when she was being savaged by the other mums and dads at the end for her reign of shit.

It all starts to unravel for Simone when she couldn't get up in time to dress her daughter for the school run, and so cue the kind of sad piano music you get on Australian soaps when teenagers go to the beach to think things over. And she causes a scandal in the house by going back to bed and shirking her responsibilities as leader for the entire day. Isaac, her teenage son, is growing into a thoughtful and melancholy lad who wants to know who his father is. His well rehearsed plea is ignored by Simone, who decides to take advantage of his good nature by deciding that 'if I don't say anything he won't ask again'. And she's right, and all our tortured teen can do is cuddle her in case she is upset by his timid enquiry.

As with the Tiny Tearaways it's always much more painful for the adults, and the final reckoning is difficult to watch as all of the parents come together to slag Simone in the feedback section. Lee, hideous David Brent-style prick that he is, gives her the kind of feedback that shit managers give their staff, full of meaningless motivational buzzwords. It is for dad Oscar, the Obi Wan of the house, to try to make sense of Isaac's demands, and to confront Simone about her treatment of her son. But in a moment of brilliant emotional blackmail she throws it back at them that no-one has the right to talk to her impressionable son about the topic of his dad, and even Lee ends up looking guiltily at his feet.

I'm sure I'm going to end up shouting 'you fucking bitch', 'piss off', and 'dirty liar!' at the screen like I did last year. And I'll probably cry a bit too. But it's good telly, is Young Mums' Mansion, and makes you think for a minute about the plight of hard-pressed folk laughed off as pramface chavs by people with more money and education than sense or decency.